This isn’t the first incident of soldier revolt in Iraq and it will not be the last but this one has gotten some good press. The reasons vary but more and more mutinies are taking place in Iraq and as in Vietnam, it will be the fighting men and women themselves that end this debacle by standing down and letting the Iraqi people fight their own battles.

2nd Platoon had gathered for a meeting and determined they could no longer function professionally in Adhamiya — that several platoon members were afraid their anger could set loose a massacre.

“We said, ‘No.’ If you make us go there, we’re going to light up everything,” DeNardi said. “There’s a thousand platoons. Not us. We’re not going.”

They decided as a platoon that they were done, DeNardi and Cardenas said, as did several other members of 2nd Platoon. At mental health, guys had told the therapist, “I’m going to murder someone.” And the therapist said, “There comes a time when you have to stand up,” 2nd Platoon members remembered. For the sake of not going to jail, the platoon decided they had to be “unplugged.”